


there'll be flowers growing on the other side of the garden wall

by philthestone



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: CHECK OUT THIS QUALITY ANGST, Gen, SET IN SEASON FIVE BEFORE THE WRITING WENT TO LITERAL HELL IN A HANDBASKET, but anyways captain cobra is Pure and there needs to b more of it in this world, is there a timeline? i personally couldnt tell u, post 5x02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 11:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8665288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: “I miss how we used to go sailing,” says Henry, over his much-erased algebra notes, sitting in the booth at Granny’s.
Killian pushes the plate of fries towards him even though he’d won most of them in dice, anyway. “Me too.”
“Maybe – after things?” asks Henry, and Killian smiles, sort of tired and sort of gentle and looking for the very first time since Henry’s known him, his age. 
“I’d love nothing more.”
(Henry doesn’t say: I miss my mom. He thinks that’s just widely understood.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> remember when i said "im just gonna watch this show casually" and now here we are, neck-deep in garbage
> 
> anyways. season five has personally offended me from the opening milliseconds of episode 10 ("broken heart") and i am never going to forgive the writing team for their disgusting trash pile, but. emo pirate & smol boy teaming up to Save Mom has thus far been the purest Trend on this whole show. except for snow and charmings existence thats also Pure.
> 
> anyways. have this. i love henry mills
> 
> reviews are an au where the writers actually took the time to develop the dark one(s) arc properly and i could appreciate jmo & o'donoghue's excellent acting without Raging Bitterness in my heart

It starts slowly, innocuously, slipping into his daily routine as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. There’s Grandma and Gramps and baby Neal, who take the time now more than ever to give out hugs, warm and strong and grounding. There’s his mom, Regina’s tense jaw softening only when she looks at him, and there’s even Robin sometimes, clapping him on the shoulder, strong fingers squeezing just slightly in a gesture of solidarity.

Henry starts slipping into the seat beside Killian’s on impulse. 

He’s not sure why – well, he’s _sort_ of sure why, but the original impulse, after everything, after the two of them fetch Emma from the tower, after the alternate universe where everything’s wrong but maybe one or two things are the same, after Merlin’s pen has chosen him and after his mom vanishes into a swirling vortex of darkness and _after they fall back into Storybrooke with no memories and after Emma’s hard, cold, pale face sneering at them_ –

She’s his mother but she _isn’t_ , it’s _not her_ , and Henry starts slipping into the seat beside Killian’s whenever they happen to be in the same room. 

Usually it’s Granny’s, if he’s honest; not just the family meeting spot but also the only place that sells decent onion rings and Henry finds himself there more often than not, even when they’re not convening to discuss the latest Catastrophe that’s struck town.

Henry doesn’t like to think about the fact that the latest Catastrophe is his mom, so he grabs his onion rings and grabs the newspaper and doesn’t think about exactly what’s making him do this, and slips into the booth. Into the seat beside Killian’s.

Killian startles, almost – he’d been staring at the table the whole time Henry was ordering, his hand completely still against the scratched red tabletop. The tarnished silver of his rings looks dull and lifeless under the artificial lighting of Granny’s, kind of like the slope of his shoulders. Henry swallows, and looks at him, and pushes the onion rings toward him.

“I ordered too much,” he says. “So I need someone to share it with.”

He can see Killian’s throat working, can see a flicker of confusion on his face and for a moment, Henry feels – well, _bad_. They’re – he’s not sure what they are. He isn’t sure if there’s a proper label or category or title, because “my unlikely three hundred year old friend” is not enough, and “step-dad” is _way_ too much, and Henry swings his feet under the table. He misses when they used to go sailing, all laughter and breeze and Henry asking enough over-eager questions for Regina to have reason to reprimand him for being impolite if she cared enough about protecting the personal boundaries of Captain Hook to bother.

Finally, Killian says, “Too many onion rings, eh?”

“Yup,” says Henry, popping the “p”. 

“Alright,” says Killian, and reaches over to take one. Henry dives in, too, and for a moment, they sit in pseudo-companionable silence. Henry’s only thirteen; he wonders if that’s old enough for one to be able to claim knowledge of the exact way the weight of the world can sit on your shoulders. He doesn’t like the downwards pull. 

“I started looking for houses again,” Henry blurts out, and Killian’s hand stills once more, a broken onion ring dangling. “In the newspaper,” Henry adds, as if that’s necessary.

But Killian only swallows, and crumples a napkin in his hand, and motions towards the paper Henry’s got.

“Well,” he says, as though this is any other Tuesday afternoon, as though the world hasn’t been turned upside down. “Give us a look, then.”

Henry grins. He thinks it might be with relief.

**

Henry’s sleeping in his old room again, all the time. It’s weird because before – _before_ – he alternated between the mansion and the loft, and the switcheroo had started to feel more comfortable than staying in one place for too long. Archie used to say that it could make him feel displaced – he overheard him talking to Emma, way back – but it did the opposite of that, Henry thinks. It made him feel like his home spanned the whole town, like he was anything but isolated. The loft was messy and crowded and loud and brimming, and his old room was good for when he wanted to read quietly, and in both places he felt the pull of the frayed-at-the-edges family that was _still_ , somehow, holding onto each other.

Now, he’s staying in his old room all the time and his mom is just down the hall and if he squeezes his eyes shut _really_ tightly, he could imagine that it’s just one of those alternate nights, that he’s going to stay in the loft tomorrow and everything’s back to normal. 

Normal is a weird word. _Normal_ means his mom (his _other_ mom) wears her red leather again, and _normal_ means she doesn’t speak funny or poof out of nowhere behind you, and _normal_ means that she doesn’t twist words and play games and make you think everything’s fine before you realize that she tore out a little girl’s heart to manipulate you.

Henry stays up at night, in his old room, thinking about normal.

He wonders if maybe he’s started to sit beside Killian because _he_ looks like he’s staying up at night, too. Henry can never tell if the dark smudges under his eyes are lack of sleep or smeared kohl, and he almost asks. Almost. He thinks Killian might be sleeping on the _Jolly_ , and Henry wonders if that’s weird and wrong for him, too, because that used to be the only thing he knew and then it changed ( _just like for me_ ) and now it’s _un-changed_ , gone back to the way it _was_.

Henry still goes to school during the day, mostly – he’s had more absences in this past month than he has in his whole educational career – and he sees Mary Margaret and David in the mornings at Granny’s. They buy him breakfast because they’re his grandparents and that’s what they’re supposed to do, they tell him with a teasing smile, and Henry wonders if he’s too old to be hugging his grandmother the way he is, just now.

In the afternoons, Henry comes back to Granny’s to do his homework. It’s what he’s supposed to do; doing his homework at the mansion is what he did _before_. 

“Do you know anything about algebra?” asks Henry, tapping his pencil against the rings of his binder and frowning down at the page. Everything is upside down but algebra, it seems, still remains steadfastly difficult. 

“Hmm,” says Killian, leaning across the table to frown at the paper along with Henry. “I seem to recall something of the sort, yes.”

Henry feels himself grin in spite of himself. “They taught you algebra in the navy?”

Killian smiles, the corner of his mouth flitting upwards. “Let me see what’s in your books and I’ll give you an honest verdict.”

“Here,” says Henry, pointing to the mess in his workbook. “I keep getting the answer wrong.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be the other way around?”

“You mean the order of the numbers?”

“No, the – the order of the letters.” He taps at Henry’s much-erased equation, looking as confused as Henry feels. “What’s that letter supposed to mean?”

“The variables?” 

“Er,” says Killian. “Yes, that. When I did this nonsense it wasn’t nearly as complicated. We wrote it vertically.”

“But the book says it’s supposed to be left to right.” Henry holds it up for him to see. “And you have to keep your variable on the left side of the equal sign.”

Killian peers at the paper closely, pushing aside the book that’s sitting propped open in front of him against the sugar bowl and biting his lip. “You’re looking for the _x_ , then?”

“The _y_ ,” says Henry. “I dunno – polynomi-something. Whatever the heck it is.”

“Ah –” Killian smiles again, this time a little more than just a tilt of his mouth. “I’d say the queen would agree with me when I say not to disrespect educational materials, lad.”

Henry rolls his eyes. “But it’s so _useless_.”

“Not quite.” He snags the side of Henry’s binder with his hook and tugs it towards him. “Come over here, we’ll figure something out.”

“I could just ask my mom tonight,” says Henry, sliding out of his seat to join Killian on the other side. “Seeing how I have no clue what’s going on and you learned this stuff a million years ago.”

“I like to think that I’m only in the hundreds, Henry,” says Kilian with another grin; tired, sure, but Henry thinks that even if he’s totally bombing his math homework, this is – nice. Easy. A vague resemblance to something that maybe once could have been normal. “Now. Let’s see. That’s a five, is it?”

“A nine.”

“Where on Earth did you learn this bloody mess of a script?”

“Hey! My handwriting’s fine!”

“Not with numbers, it isn’t. Alright, first lesson – in order to not confuse oneself when doing arithmetic, one has to cultivate a clear and legible hand.”

“I just need help with this _one_ question,” says Henry, looking at him over the notebook.

Killian raises an eyebrow. “Do you?”

“ _Please_?”

Killian’s eyebrow raises higher; Henry’s not quite used to _this_ , but he’s had stare-downs with his moms before, and bartered for things with Grandma and Gramps before, and usually he can hold his ground for all of five minutes. If they give in before then, he’s got it in the bag. 

If they don’t – well.

Henry tries to raise an eyebrow right back (this doesn’t work) and sets his jaw. He’d shucked his jacket much earlier on, when he first came in, but Killian’s still wearing his, his fingers sometimes curling against the hem of the sleeve, fist tight and curled. He has a vague memory of Emma once telling him that jackets can be a little like armor. It’s a New York memory, and Henry can’t remember if she was talking about the cold or the world in general, but it’s not particularly cold outside today.

Killian blinks and sighs and looks down. He taps the book and pushes it towards Henry. “The answer’s thirteen.”

Henry gapes. “How did you do that?”

“Glimpsed the back of your text over there,” he says, and in another world, Henry thinks, where things are normal, he would have winked. He _would_. Henry knows.

He doesn’t though, only looks amused in a tired, drawn sort of way, and Henry sighs. 

“Thanks, Killian.”

“Think nothing of it, Henry,” as he pulls his book back towards him – far more gently, this time, using his hand – and Henry slides back into his original seat. He recognizes the script on the old pages, the thickness of the text. It’s the book they found in the crimson crown in, and it’s been almost a week and things are no better than they were and Henry isn’t stupid; he knows why Killian’s spent the better part of the past hour glaring down at the pages until the hot chocolate Henry ordered them went cold.

“Belle says she’s gonna find more books,” Henry says after a moment of silence. Killian’s shoulders tense.

“Aye.”

“I know –” he swallows, and swings his legs again, and wonders if he can get away with doing his homework tomorrow morning on the bus. “I know you’re probably – you don’t have time or anything, now, but. You should read Lord of the Rings sometime.”

Killian looks up, something in the usually hard lines his face softening. Actually, Henry’s become a lot more familiar with the soft lines than the hard ones, lately. “Should I, now?”

“You’d like it,” says Henry. “Cause – I mean, you like books, and stuff. When you’ve got the time –”

“I’ll inquire after it with Belle this evening,” says Killian, with another tired smile, and Henry nods.

**

Storybrooke feels cold all the time, now, perpetually caught in a sort of November-ish feel – Henry always hated November – and he thinks that he _could_ ask to stay with his Grandparents some nights, and he _could_ go to the library and get homework help from Belle, and he _could_ just spend the night at home with Regina and eat lasagna and maybe watch a cheesy rom com that his mom would pretend to groan over but secretly love. Henry would make her promise not to tell anyone that he chose the movie, and she’d raise her eyebrow and say, “Well, I’m not making any guarantees,” and Henry would groan and everything would _seem_ normal. 

He doesn’t do any of this, though. He still sleeps every night at the mansion, and still meets Grandma and Gramps at the diner before school, and still struggles with algebra. But Emma isn’t there, not really, and the couple times she _does_ show up, Henry feels like he wants to cry, so. It’s no use pretending, he thinks. There’s just. This _hole_.

Killian stops coming to Granny’s after a while, and Henry doesn’t have anyone to help him cheat on his math homework anymore, so he starts doing the only sensible thing he can think of and drops by the docks every day after school. The first couple times, he sends Regina a text letting her know; but after a week he stops telling people where he is, and he just _does_ , and he wonders if it’s because he trusts Killian or his mom or if he’s just stopped caring, at this point. 

The first time, he steps onto the gangplank and says “Ahoy!” just because that’s what he did the last time – before everything was a mess, and he realizes once again just how long it’s been since he came down to the docks – and then wanders onto the ship anyway, because no one comes out to answer his super accurate greeting.

Killian’s down in the captain’s cabin when Henry finds him. The dark smudges under his eyes look even darker in the weird light, but he’s sitting in a corner and reading _Lord of the Rings_. 

“Hi,” says Henry.

“Hullo,” says Killian, looking up. “Won’t your mother wonder where you’ve gotten to?”

“I sent her a text.” Henry sits down on the floor beside him and pulls out his math homework. The cabin looks less furnished than he remembered it – he’d stayed there, before, when they were sailing back from Neverland. It was warm and smelled like wood and old books, leather and sweat and something that could have been cinnamon. Henry had liked the pattern on the worn quilt covering the bed. “Can I stay here for a while?”

There it is again – the softening, and something that looks a little like heartbreak. Henry wonders what it feels like to be in love with the Dark One, like _that_. He’s got an idea, he knows, but Killian loves her differently than how Henry does. 

It would probably be impolite, he thinks, to ask. Regina would definitely bother reprimanding him over _this_.

“It would be,” says Killian, because he always has to add a flourish to things, Henry knows, “an honour to have you aboard.”

Henry smiles and bumps his shoulder, like he’s seen Gramps do before when he’s trying to be friendly and playful. Things require effort, Henry knows. But he’s not sure what _things_ he’s got in mind, exactly.

He misses his mom.

Killian turns a page in his book, and then another, and then he says, “How would you like to learn how to tie a stopper knot?”

“Does it look cool?” asks Henry.

“Very,” says Killian. “A sailing essential.”

Henry grins and puts down his books. He knows that Killian misses her, too.

**

Regina has a new plan and Mr. Gold is still missing and Belle has spent her every waking hour in the library, and Henry still can’t sleep. He falls asleep in algebra and dreams of the awful blue house with the white picket fence, and how it felt to hug Emma before, all strong and warm and tight. He wakes up with a start, drool dotting his half-done notes, and maybe it’s because his teacher sends him home early that day, or maybe it’s because when he gets to the station later that night Killian’s also there looking stricken, and maybe –

Henry isn’t sure, but something certainly prompts his Grandma to decide, firmly and without hesitation, than Henry is sleeping with them that night. 

“You too, Hook,” she says, and Henry is standing close enough to him to feel him startle.

“I –”

“No arguments,” says Snow, rocking slightly with Neal in her arms. “We’re taking you both home with us.” David nods from the other side of the desk where he’s packing away his things, rushed and haphazard, into his bag. They’re going home. _Home_. To the loft. “I talked to Regina about it.” She smiles at Henry. “It’ll be like a slumber party.”

Henry remembers: the last time they had a slumber party, Emma had nearly died of hypothermia, and the queen of Arendelle was sleeping on an air mattress in the living room. He’s pretty sure Killian slept on the couch that night, too, even though his mom refused to let go of his hand for a good hour after Grandma bustled her into bed. But. 

Henry had been excited, that night. It was exciting. Slumber parties were always exciting.

Mary Margaret pulls out the extra blankets from the linen closet almost immediately after they all troop through the door, the lot of them looking more like they’ve just been to a funeral than anyone about to have a slumber party. She piles the couch with the blankets, directing Henry towards his old room and telling David to put an already-sleeping Neal in his crib. Killian hovers awkwardly in the doorway, at first, but Henry sees Gramps squeeze his shoulder and push him gently towards the couch and so Henry decides to drop his backpack onto the floor and go brush his teeth. 

Henry’s sure he’s exhausted all through receiving a goodnight kiss on the forehead (Snow) and a warm hug (David) and whisper-yelling a “goodnight!” down the stairs to Killian, who in turn whisper-yells one back. He knows he’s tired. He thinks that a change of scenery might make it easier to sleep, so tomorrow he won’t doze off in algebra again and dream about that awful white picket house.

Emma’s not here. Last time, Emma was here. _Here_. Like, not exactly literally in the loft, though that’s a bummer too because Henry’s used to her stomping walk in the mornings right across the hall from him, waking him up. She’s not here in the general, metaphoric sense, like physically but not _essentially_. Henry counts invisible dots on the ceiling above his head and thinks that she _will_ be here, soon. One day. They’ll figure something out, because she’s not _gone_ , she’s still around.

It’ll be fine. 

The clock reads one o’clock in the morning when Henry realizes that he’s still counting invisible dots on the ceiling and his cheeks are wet, so he crawls out of the bed that his mom used to help him make, swipes his fist at his face, and tiptoes down the stairs, careful not to step on the loose floorboards. His too-small pajama pants and t-shirt are too thin, goosebumps rippling over his arms, but he doesn’t go back upstairs for a robe. He thinks that if he goes upstairs again, everything will be a little too much.

He stops in the living room, because there’s faint moonlight coming in through the window and he can see Killian blink up at him in surprise from the couch. He shifts, sitting up on his elbows, wearing something that Henry is sure is Gramps’s old t-shirt just by the way it hangs a little bit too loosely at his shoulders. Henry notices that his hook’s lying on the coffee table; it looks small and forlorn, almost, and then Henry tells himself that it’s one in the morning and the writer in him is being annoying.

“Henry?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Henry whispers. People are supposed to whisper at one in the morning, he knows, but he also thinks that he doesn’t quite have it in him to talk any more loudly.

Killian doesn’t say anything for a moment. Henry wonders if it’s because anything he could say – “Are you alright?”, for example, that’s a good one – is almost self evident. Killian, of all people – he understands. 

“Do you want some company, lad?” he asks finally, his voice rough from disuse (not sleep, Henry knows – he has the look of someone who has, also, been counting invisible dots on the ceiling. Or maybe not. Henry isn’t sure what Killian does when he can’t sleep.)

“I was going to make hot cocoa,” says Henry, still in a whisper, and Killian nods.

They try to be quite in the kitchen – they _are_ quiet, Henry thinks – setting mugs down as gently as possible and making sure the stove doesn’t whistle and not using the microwave because Henry _knows_ it always beeps obnoxiously when it’s done. 

Snow and David wake up anyway. Henry thinks they might have a sixth sense, having a baby in the house. 

They come down to the two of them sitting on the couch, cocoa gripped in Killian’s one hand and cradled between Henry’s two; Grandma’s pulling a soft white robe around herself and Gramp’s t-shirt and hair are rumpled, both of them blinking the sleep out of their eyes, but when she sees them, Snow’s whole face seems to ripple into a particular sort of softness that Henry thinks is unique to his grandmother. 

“Oh,” she says, and doesn’t get any farther because Killian’s put his cocoa back down on the table, almost reflexively, as though he’s been burned. Henry’s certain the heat of the liquid isn’t strong enough to burn through the ceramic, and he feels himself sit up straighter for a reason he can’t quite articulate just now, at one in the morning. 

“We couldn’t sleep,” says Henry, and that – that’s enough. Grandma looks at Gramps and then back at the two of them – one three hundred year old pirate whose hair is sticking up from where it was pressed against the couch and one barely-teenager whose pajama bottoms have grown too small, the hems skimming his shins. 

David says, “I’ll go make some more cocoa,” and Mary Margaret says nothing but comes and sits on the couch, fitting gently between the two of them. She takes Henry’s left hand in hers and only hesitates very briefly before reaching over and grabbing Killian’s right, and they sit.

“It’s going to be okay,” she says finally, in a way that is once again uniquely _her_ , because Henry thinks that were _anyone else_ saying it the words would feel empty and false, crumbling onto the floor. They don’t. They sooth the goosebumps on his arms the way his cocoa was supposed to, and Henry thinks he sees Killian’s shoulders relax slightly on Snow’s other side. 

Henry puts his head on his grandmother’s shoulder and closes his eyes; David comes back from making the cocoa ten minutes later to find the three of them asleep, sprawled in an awkward sitting position along the couch. He pulls the quilt that’s fallen to the living room floor over them and takes the metaphorical watch in the armchair opposite.

(Henry dreams of the _Jolly Roger_ , and his mother’s laugh.

_It’s going to be okay_.)


End file.
